- Why do we assess reading? We assess reading in order to identify students' strengths and weaknesses. With accurate measures we are able to track students' progress and make the necessary interventions and provide the appropriate enrichment depending on the student being assessed.
- What do we assess when we assess reading? When we assess reading we assess students' fluency, accuracy, reading comprehension and phonological awareness.
- How (and where and when) do we assess reading? Teachers are constantly assessing students' reading in the classroom: informally during read alouds and in small groups. Teachers can also ask questions that assess students' phonological awareness, reading comprehension, etc. More formal reading assessments include running records.
- What reading assessments do you know of? Running records, various checklists created by the teacher
- Did you observe any reading assessments in the classroom? Explain type of the assessment and the procedures. Teacher had a checklist for each unit and monitored student progress throughout the unit. She informally assessed students during read alouds and conversations during the active engagement portion of the lesson.
Assignment #2
·
What new assessment practices will you use in your classroom? Running records (I am already familiar
with), anecdotal notes (taking notes on interactions with students and taking
note of strengths and weaknesses)
·
In what ways do you plan to use the results of your assessments?
The results of these assessments help to
track student progress and make decisions based on students’ needs, strengths
and weaknesses. The results of
assessments can indicate the needs of the class as a whole and individual
students/groups of students. When
planning lessons it is important to know the levels of students’ needs and how
to address both strengths and weaknesses (i.e. how/when to enrich students and
how/when to supplement learning for students).
·
What assessment practices do you want to know more about? Are there specific templates for anectdotal
logs? At my school we maintain TANs
(teacher assessment notebooks) in which we keep anectdotal logs of interactions
with students (strengths, weaknesses, etc.).
I am wondering what this looks like specifically in the literacy
classroom. I have seen checklists in previous literacy courses as well.
·
What are the challenges you still face in assessing and
recording student achievement and progress in reading and writing? I feel like with the average teacher work
load it can be challenging to track every students’ progress. I feel like students can often “fall through
the cracks” and students who need to be challenged more don’t receive that
challenge because the teacher focuses on bringing below level students on
level.
A Assignment #3
I read about the difference between concept of word and concept of print and the importance of both as foundations for children's reading abilities. I started to think about how when I was in early elementary school the first thing I remember is focusing on the alphabet and what letters look like and being able to identify letters. I never really thought about this progression of letter recognition to word recognition which eventually leads up to reading comprehension and being able to extract meaning from a text. There is a connection between letter recognition and sound recognition. Students need to be able to make the connection between speech sounds and the corresponding letters. I really didn't know anything about phonemic awareness and read a little about it and the difference between phonemic and phonic awareness (sounds of words vs. blending). When I was reading about fluency I read about how its entails accuracy, reading quickly, and using expression. I read how to develop fluency teachers should give students the opportunity to read the same passage aloud; I have seen students being asked to re-read a passage or part of a passage to develop meaning but did not consider fluency. Comprehension requires all of these skills; everything really builds up to comprehension. Also vocabulary is a necessary component for reading comprehension because in order to understand a text students need to be familiar with vocabulary words (this is where interactive word walls comes in).
A Assignment #3
I read about the difference between concept of word and concept of print and the importance of both as foundations for children's reading abilities. I started to think about how when I was in early elementary school the first thing I remember is focusing on the alphabet and what letters look like and being able to identify letters. I never really thought about this progression of letter recognition to word recognition which eventually leads up to reading comprehension and being able to extract meaning from a text. There is a connection between letter recognition and sound recognition. Students need to be able to make the connection between speech sounds and the corresponding letters. I really didn't know anything about phonemic awareness and read a little about it and the difference between phonemic and phonic awareness (sounds of words vs. blending). When I was reading about fluency I read about how its entails accuracy, reading quickly, and using expression. I read how to develop fluency teachers should give students the opportunity to read the same passage aloud; I have seen students being asked to re-read a passage or part of a passage to develop meaning but did not consider fluency. Comprehension requires all of these skills; everything really builds up to comprehension. Also vocabulary is a necessary component for reading comprehension because in order to understand a text students need to be familiar with vocabulary words (this is where interactive word walls comes in).
